A 23-year-old Minnesota woman originally from Guatemala was denied humanitarian parole by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and will not receive surgery for her ovarian cyst, the agency said Tuesday.
Andrea Pedro Francisco has been detained by ICE since Feb. 5, when she was arrested during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota and sent to detention facilities in El Paso. She had been scheduled for ovarian cyst surgery on Feb. 11, and her attorney and supporters have said the cyst has grown to the size of a tennis ball.
“Medical staff have determined her condition does not make her a candidate for surgical intervention. However, a periodic ultrasound is recommended to monitor the condition,” ICE said in a statement to El Paso Matters Tuesday afternoon. “Her request for release on parole was denied May 4.”
Pedro Francisco’s immigration attorney, Ruby Powers of Houston, condemned ICE’s decisions.
“We received the parole denial this morning and are deeply concerned. Ms. Pedro-Francisco is a 23-year-old civil detainee — not a convicted criminal — diagnosed with an ovarian cyst requiring emergency care. Independent medical professionals outside the detention system have determined she needs surgery. ICE disagrees. We believe the outside assessment must prevail,” Powers said.
Pedro Francisco’s case has drawn international attention, with the human rights group Amnesty International calling for her release and U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minnesota, traveling to El Paso on Monday to meet with her and press ICE for medical treatment and potential release from detention.
Large ovarian cysts often are removed through surgery, according to medical literature. Delaying surgery can increase complications if the cyst ruptures, and ruptures can be fatal in rare cases.
Pedro Francisco came to the United States with her mother at age 16 in 2019, fleeing violence and discrimination against Indigenous people in her native Guatemala, Powers has said.
Pedro Francisco has been living in Minnesota as she and her mother pursued asylum claims. They’ve been working as house cleaners, and Pedro Francisco has been active in her church in the Twin Cities suburb of Burnsville, Powers said.
She is scheduled for a May 20 master calendar hearing before an immigration judge at ICE’s El Paso Service Processing Center, where she is being detained. The hearing is procedural and won’t determine whether she’ll be granted asylum or be removed from the country.
An El Paso federal judge in April denied Pedro Francisco’s request for a writ of habeas corpus, which would have allowed her to ask an immigration judge for a bond that could lead to her release. ICE has the discretion to release her on humanitarian parole, which the agency grants in rare cases for people with medical conditions or concerns.
Powers said she is “pursuing all available legal remedies and call on ICE to immediately reconsider the parole denial and provide Ms. Pedro-Francisco the surgical care she needs.”
She also took issue with ICE’s statement that the medical care it provides to detainees “is the best healthcare that many individuals have received in their lives.” The agency has routinely included that language in statements responding to questions about the quality of care in ICE facilities.
Powers said the claim “is offensive and beside the point. The standard is whether care meets constitutional requirements — and it does not here. To date, she has been neglected surgery for two months.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The post ICE says detained 23-year-old is not candidate for ovarian cyst surgery, denies humanitarian parole appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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